Key Findings in Michigan
- 85% of Michigan adults age 65 and older reported driving at least once a week in the past six months, and 61% said they drive most days.
- Among Michigan drivers age 65 and older, 90% said they are very confident they can drive safely now, though only 52% felt very confident in their ability to drive safely over the next five years. Compared with older drivers in the rest of the U.S., older drivers in Michigan were more confident in their ability to drive safely both now and in the future.
- 39% of Michigan drivers age 65 and older have a plan in place for when they are no longer able to drive, compared with 46% of drivers age 65 and over in the rest of the country.
From the Motor City to the Keweenaw Peninsula, people age 65 and older in Michigan don’t just live in a state known for its automotive industry.
They drive like it too, according to a new University of Michigan poll.
Older Michigan drivers are more confident about their safe driving ability, and less likely to avoid driving under different conditions, than their peers in the rest of the country.
But the findings from the Michigan Poll on Healthy Aging also suggest a need for more older Michigan drivers to plan for a time when they might not be able to drive. It also shows major differences in driving behaviors based on health and disability status.
The poll was conducted by a team from the U-M Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation that partnered with researchers from the U-M Transportation Research Institute (UMTRI), one of the nation’s top centers for studying driving among older adults.
They’ve published an online interactive dashboard of data from the Michigan findings at https://michmed.org/7KwYY. The team has also published a report on findings from all states, via the National Poll on Healthy Aging.
In all, 90% of Michiganders age 65 and over who have driven in the past six months say they are very confident in their ability to drive safely, compared with 81% of those in the rest of the United States.
Michigan drivers were also less likely than their peers nationwide to say they avoid driving at night, in heavy traffic, on highways or in unfamiliar places.
Looking ahead, 52% of older drivers in Michigan are very confident they’ll be able to drive safely five years from now, compared with 43% of older drivers elsewhere.
But only 39% of older Michiganders who drive say they have a plan in place for what they would do if they could no longer drive, compared with 46% of those in other states.
The poll team also asked about advance driving directives (ADDs), with which few older adults (15%) were familiar. ADDs are documents that help a person indicate their driving preferences in case of future health concerns and identify a person to help with decisions about stopping driving.
Even after learning about ADDs, older Michigan drivers were more likely to say such documents are not important, with 38% saying so compared with 30% in the rest of the nation.
“Our state’s history as the home of the automotive industry, and of ‘car culture’ that values the role of the driver, is reflected in these findings,” said UMTRI researcher Renée St. Louis, Ph.D., who worked with the poll team and her colleague David W. Eby, Ph.D. to develop the poll and its reports. “But for older adults, it’s important to prepare for the possibility that driving ability can change as they age or encounter health challenges. More use of advance driving directives, put in place ahead of time, can help with those transitions.”
Similarities to peers nationwide
On some poll questions, Michiganders age 65 and older had responses that were more similar to those in other states.
For instance, 61% of older Michiganders drive most days, while 11% haven’t driven at all in the past six months, compared with 62% and 10% nationally. In all, 85% of adults age 65 and over in Michigan said they drive at least once a week, about the same as the national percentage.
Among active drivers, 6% of Michiganders have ever spoken with a health care provider about their driving, the same percentage as in the national sample.
“Even with Michiganders expressing confidence in their ability to drive safely, it’s important to discuss how health can change over time, or how healthcare interventions such as a new medication or upcoming operation, might affect that ability,” said Jeff Kullgren, M.D., M.P.H., M.S., the poll’s director and a primary care physician at the VA Ann Arbor Healthcare System and an associate professor of internal medicine at the U-M Medical School.
Differences by health status and alternatives to driving
The poll explored how driving and health status intersect. In all, 17% of older Michigan drivers say they have at least one health issue that affects their driving ability, with 10% citing their vision.
Michiganders over 65 who rate their mental health or physical health as good to excellent were much more likely to drive at least once a week than those who reported fair or poor health of either kind.
There was an even greater difference in driving habits between Michigan drivers who report having a disability that limits their daily activities and drivers in Michigan who do not have a disability. Even so, 68% of those who say they have a disability also said they drive at least weekly, compared with 92% of those who do not report having a disability.
The poll also asked about alternatives to driving among all Michiganders age 65 and over, regardless of whether they drive.
Getting rides from friends and family members was much more common among Michiganders who said their physical health is fair or poor (58% vs. 30% of those in excellent to good health), or who said they have a disability (64% vs. 22% without a disability). On the whole, older Michiganders were less likely to have received rides from friends or family than their peers nationwide, at 35% vs 44%.
Older Michiganders were also less likely than their peers nationwide to have used a rideshare or taxi service in the last year, with 12% having done so in Michigan compared with 21% in the rest of the country.
Overall, 12% of older Michiganders said they had used public transportation in the last year, similar to the 14% rate nationwide. But when the poll team examined this use by the region of the state where respondents lived, they found that those in the northern and southwestern parts of the state were much more likely to say that public transportation was not available in their area, compared with those in the southeast and central regions.
Resources for older Michigan drivers
UMTRI has teamed up with the State of Michigan to create an entire site for older drivers, their families and the professionals who provide health care and other services to them. The site provides resources to support older driver safety and mobility, as well as guidance for families and professionals on transitioning away from driving.
Called Safe Drivers, Smart Options, it’s available at https://www.michigan.gov/agingdriver/ and includes a downloadable guide for aging drivers and their families in English, Spanish and Arabic.
About the poll
The national poll findings come from a nationally representative survey conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago for IHPI and administered online and via phone in February 2025 to 2,883 respondents age 50 to 97 from the AmeriSpeak panel. The Michigan-focused analysis includes 1,353 Michigan adults age 50 to 95, including a non-probability oversample. Results are weighted to reflect each respective population.
The Michigan poll is supported by the Michigan Health Endowment Fund.
Read past National Poll on Healthy Aging reports and Michigan findings, and learn about the poll methodology.
Featured In
Categories
Published on:
Volume/Issue:
November/December 2025
Contributing Faculty:
